


i grow fonder every day

by Flowerparrish



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Date Auction, First Kiss, Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Not Beta Read, So Much Awkwardness, but it's quickly resolved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-25 02:00:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22088194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flowerparrish/pseuds/Flowerparrish
Summary: It was down to Natasha and Clint. He looked at her, gaze pleading, and she raised an eyebrow. The eyebrow said it all.“I’ll do it,” Clint said with a sigh, and that was that.
Relationships: Clint Barton/Steve Rogers
Comments: 46
Kudos: 187





	i grow fonder every day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ClaraxBarton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaraxBarton/gifts).



> For Clara's birthday! Thank you for the prompt and, more generally, for being the most awesome of friends. You deserve ALL the good things.

Clint knew that many of the situations he got himself into were his own fault.

This one, though? This one he felt could fairly be blamed on Natasha.

That wasn’t totally fair, if Clint was honest. It was more on the nameless PR people who ran publicity for the Avengers. When one of their PR minions sat them down and went over who still needed to sign up for which events, Clint thought he would get out of it pretty lightly. He was, after all, America’s fifth or sixth favorite Avenger, depending on the day and how the public felt about the Hulk. There weren’t too many people clamoring to interview him on Good Morning America; not when they could have Cap or Tony Stark or Thor instead.

But then the PR minion asked for volunteers for a charity date auction, and Clint’s heart sunk.

Steve tried to volunteer, a pained look on his face all the while, and was quickly shot down. Too many weird people had a boner for a real live American icon—allowing someone from the public, even if the bidders were vetted by SHIELD, to go on a date with him was just too risky.

Tony couldn’t/shouldn’t/wouldn’t for similar reasons. He didn’t bother offering; he did argue against the whole idea in the first place, saying that date auctions were dubiously consensual at best and beyond that outdated. Unfortunately, he was ignored.

Thor was off-planet. Lucky asshole.

No one was going to try to make Bruce do it.

It was down to Natasha and Clint. He looked at her, gaze pleading, and she raised an eyebrow. The eyebrow said it all.

“I’ll do it,” Clint said with a sigh, and that was that.

When it was all said and done, he didn’t have to do much. PR handled everything from his blurb to his outfit, and SHIELD _did_ vet the bidders, so it was… fine. It would be fine.

It was one date with a random person. It would be awkward, probably at some ridiculously fancy restaurant where the food was actually foam or whatever, and he would survive it and go home and eat a large pizza by himself and collapse into a food coma to recover from it.

Natasha insisted on attending the gala with him, but when a last-minute mission came up, Clint resigned himself to going it alone.

He was surprised, then, when he came out of his room, fiddling with his tie, and bumped headfirst into Steve.

Steve’s arms came up to brace him, and Clint took a moment to revel in how firm Steve was against him before he stepped away. “Uh, hi?”

Steve looked slightly flushed. He also looked handsome as hell; he was wearing a tuxedo that was perfectly fitted, and his tie, unlike Clint’s, was not even the tiniest bit askew. “Hi.” He smiled, a soft, uncertain thing. “I thought—if it’s okay—Nat said I could go with you to the gala in her place?”

“Oh.” Clint blinks in surprise. “Yeah, sure. Of course. That’d be awesome.”

Steve’s soft smile loses its uncertain edge. “Great. Did you, uh…?”

“What?”

“I could help you with your tie, if you want,” Steve offers, the pink in his cheeks darkening a little.

Clint feels a swoop low in his gut and tells his stomach to keep itself under control, because his crush on Steve? Never going to be reciprocated. That’s not how this story goes.

“That would be awesome,” Clint says with a sigh. “I’ve never been good at it.”

Steve’s fingers, so big they should by all rights be clumsy, make quick work of the knot. He smooths the tie down on Clint’s chest, and when he glances up at Clint as he pulls his hands away, his tongue darts out to wet his lips.

Which… means nothing, right?

“Thanks.” Clint fights not to wince when his voice comes out a little higher pitched than normal.

Steve doesn’t seem to notice. He just nods and says, “We should probably go.”

Clint sighs. “Yeah,” he agrees glumly. “Best to just get this over with.”

It’s not the worst gala. There’s a lot of press who get excited to see Steve—apparently Clint was listed with an unspecified plus one—and ask a lot of leading questions about his relationship to Clint. Steve feeds them lines about supporting the cause—Clint honestly isn’t sure what charity(ies?) they’re supporting, but at least Steve seems to know—as well as supporting his teammate.

At one point, Steve tells the reporters, “Anyone would be lucky to snag a date with this guy,” and Clint doesn’t know what to do with that. Like, yeah, his heart skips a beat, but that’s the kind of thing you say about your friends, right?

Steve catches his eye and there’s something intent in his eyes, even if their gazes only meet for less than a full second, and Clint’s… confused.

Yeah, confused. That’s a good word for it.

The press eventually deign to ask Clint some questions, and he mostly recycles the things Steve has said and smiles into the too-bright flashes of cameras.

It lasts too long for all that it’s only a few minutes at most, but finally, _finally,_ Steve wraps an arm around Clint’s shoulder’s—how does he _do_ that in a tux?—and says, “We have to go now, thank you,” while guiding Clint away.

Clint wilts as soon as they’re out of sight of the press. “How do you _do_ that?”

Steve doesn’t pull his arm away from Clint’s shoulders; if anything, he tugs him just the tiniest bit closer. “Lots of practice.”

Clint makes a face. “Yuck.”

“You said it.”

They breathe for a few minutes in a side corridor before allowing themselves to be announced to the room at large. They’re left to find their table, and by the time they do, it’s already full save for their two seats.

Clint… hates this. He can see in the tense set of Steve’s shoulders how much he hates it too, though, and Steve’s still taking the brunt of the attention, so Clint can suck up the little bits of small talk he’s forced to engage in.

He kind of wonders, with most of his attention because he really doesn’t _care_ about the rich lady whose name he’s forgotten and her story about her cat, why Steve volunteered to come with him to this. It’s clearly not his scene, and his smile is starting to wear thin around the edges by the time the salads are brought out.

Dinner is good; Clint manages not to spill anything on himself, which is a relief. Even better, most people cease talking for at least a few minutes while they eat.

But then comes… the auction.

Clint’s led backstage, and when he passes a table near the front, he hears a woman who has either had a few too many glasses of wine or is just naturally obnoxious titter to her friend that she wouldn’t mind to take a bite out of him.

Which, gross. Clint’s been objectified plenty in his line of work, but he kind of thought he was past that. Alas, no. SHIELD could vet out the terrorists who wanted to kidnap an Avenger, but not the lecherous millionaires and billionaires willing to pay to say they went on a date with an Avenger.

Still, he’s mostly calm by the time he makes it to the stage. His auction is slated early on—he doesn’t pretend to know why, he’s just relieved that it will be over soon—and he stands there when announced and tries not to fidget.

But then they _hand him the mic._

He panics.

He didn’t know he would have to speak.

Here’s the thing. Clint can charm anyone one on one, or even in a small crowd. But he’s never been good at speaking to large groups of people. And he’s never fit in to a fancy environment. This whole thing is just… _not_ something he was prepared for. At all.

“Just say a few words about yourself,” the announcer—auctioneer?—says quietly.

Clint nods and smiles tightly. “Uh, hi?” he says into the microphone, which promptly screeches. He winces, hands it back to the guy, who fiddles with it and hands it back. “I’m Clint Barton. I like dogs and pizza and sometimes I save the world.” The audience lets out a little polite chuckle, which, okay. He wasn’t trying to be funny, but sure, that works.

He casts around for something else to say and genuinely can’t think of anything. He’s just… not that interesting.

So, instead of opening his mouth and letting anything stupid fall out, he just hands the microphone back to the guy, who now looks distinctly long-suffering.

And so it begins.

Clint tries not the listen to the numbers that are being said, in all honesty, because it’s kind of freaking him out. The bidding _starts_ at fifty thousand dollars, and steadily increases from there.

Clint’s not sure he’s ever had fifty thousand dollars in his bank account (mostly because he keeps that much and more in safe places scattered across the globe, but still). He can’t imagine dropping that kind of money on a _date._ Not with anyone. Not _even_ on a date with Steve.

(Okay. _Maybe_ on a date with Steve. He’s only human.)

Instead, he enjoys the rhythm of watching people bid. At least, he does until a knot of dread begins to form in his stomach when the lecherous lady who wanted to take a bite out of him—whatever that meant, and he sure hopes he doesn’t have to find out—starts slowly but surely outbidding her competition.

Clint slowly becomes resigned to his fate.

The auctioneer calls once, and twice, and Clint bites the inside of his cheek when—

A bidding placard goes up. Clint looks from the number down to the face of the person holding it, and barely catches himself from saying, “Steve?” in surprised awe.

He doesn’t hear the number Steve says, too caught up in shock that Steve’s bidding on him at all, but when Clint glances back at the lady, she looks sour-faced, like she just sucked on a lemon or stepped in dog poo.

So, maybe Clint doesn’t want to know after all.

Steve has been called away to fill out paperwork and whatever else—write a check, maybe? wire money?—by the time Clint’s free to go back to his table.

“Are you and Captain Rogers dating?” someone a few seats away demands as soon as he sits down.

“Uh, no,” Clint offers, genuinely baffled.

“Really,” someone else says, a question and also very much not a question so much as a statement of disbelief.

“Really,” Clint agrees. “Don’t you think I would have said something by now if we were dating? Who wouldn’t want the world to know they were dating Steve Rogers?”

There are some murmurs around him that sound conciliatory in nature. He’ll take the win.

Clint thinks about propriety for about half a second before he shrugs and folds his arms on the table, resting his head on top of them, and closes his eyes. Steve can wake him up when it’s time to go.

Clint’s on autopilot leaving; he smiles, he waves, and he follows where Steve steers him.

He slumps down into the backseat of the limo Tony gave him for the night and keeps going until his cheek meets Steve’s shoulder. “Did that just happen?”

“Yep.”

“Oh.”

They’re quiet for a few blocks, and Clint takes that time to breathe Steve in. Clint doesn’t know what Steve smells like: detergent, soap, cologne, whatever. It doesn’t really matter; Steve just smells _good._

That’s a dangerous thought, though, because it leads to the impulse to nuzzle his face into Steve’s neck, to curl his body more fully into Steve’s. To push away those tempting impulses, he says, “Why’d you do it?”

“Well, I wasn’t going to let _her_ win,” Steve replies. There’s conviction in his tone, like he’s already gearing up to fight about it.

“Thanks,” Clint says around a yawn. He’s disappointed, a little, because wouldn’t it be nice if Steve had done it just because he wanted a date with Clint? But then, Steve knows Clint; if he wanted to go out with him, Steve would just say something.

No, instead, Steve rescued Clint from an awkward encounter that had the potential to go pretty poorly. It feels wrong to be disappointed in the face of that, so Clint shoves away the disappointment and allows relief to wash over him instead.

“You’re not mad?” Steve asks quietly.

“Uh, no?” Clint starts to shake his head, but that’s almost too close to nuzzling Steve’s shoulder, so he stops. “She looked at me like I was a piece of meat. Like, yeah, I’m hot, but…”

“You’re much more than that,” Steve agrees softly, even though Clint had left the words unsaid because, well, _was_ he?

Steve sure sounds convinced. Clint’s tired and Steve’s words make him feel warm and content, so he doesn’t bother to dredge up his insecurities and fight Steve on it. “Thanks,” he says again. Then a thought occurs to him. “You don’t gotta actually do it, y’know,” he says. “We could just say we went out.”

Steve tenses underneath Clint’s cheek, pliable warmth becoming hard angles. “I think they want to publicize it,” he says after a moment.

Clint hums. “Oh, yeah, makes sense. Well, it’ll still be fun, right?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, and the word is heavy but Clint can’t figure out why.

He’d puzzle it out, but his eyes feel weighted down, so instead he allows them to drift shut. “Wake me up when we get there?”

There’s a small huff from above him, a breath that ruffles his hair just a bit. “Sure, Clint. I got you.”

Clint wakes up the next morning in his own bed. He doesn’t remember how he got there, until he realizes Steve must have brought him here instead of waking him up.

That thought makes him feel distinctly warm inside, until he locks his crush away in the back of his mind and goes on with his day.

When Natasha comes back from her mission and hears the story, she says, “So you have a date with your crush. I don’t understand why you aren’t happier about this?”

Clint opens his mouth to say he _doesn’t_ have a crush on Steve, but then he closes it, because there’s no point in lying to Nat.

He’d say that he’s not freaking out about it, but that would also be a lie.

“It’s not a _real_ date,” he finally says. Complains. Whines. Whatever.

She sits down on her couch with a mug of tea, and he takes that as an opportunity to flop down across the rest of the couch, his head in her lap. She rolls her eyes, but moments later her fingers begin carding through his hair. “He paid a lot of money to go on a fake date with you. I think it’s pretty clear that he would say yes if you asked him to go on a real date with you.”

Clint sighs. “He was just being noble and saving me from creepy people.”

She rolls her eyes. “Clint. If he wanted to save you, he would have texted Tony to anonymously bid an obscene amount.”

Clint squints up at her. “That doesn’t sound like a thing.”

She sighs, as if she’s truly burdened by his stupidity. “The team decided date auctions are a hotbed of dubious consent and no one should be subjected to them. No one actually wants to see you suffer, Clint.” She pauses. “Well, except in training exercises. Then everyone wants to see you suffer, because you make stupid jokes.”

“My jokes are amazing,” Clint grumbles. Then what Nat has said clicks. “Wait. Then why didn’t you just do that?”

She shrugs elegantly. “Steve went off-script. Tony was curious. He let it play out.”

“But—” Clint doesn’t actually know what to say, he just needs to protest. “But he doesn’t actually want to go out with me. He said so. He just has to so he can appease the charity auction people.”

“Did he actually say that?”

“Yes,” Clint protests, but then he thinks back, and, _oh._ He’d been the one to say they didn’t have to do it. “Oh. Maybe…not.”

Natasha rolls her eyes. She’s going to give herself a headache if she keeps doing that. “Tell him you want to go on a real date with him.”

Clint… doesn’t think he can do that. Because, yeah, Natasha has a pretty convincing argument, but there’s still the _Clint_ factor of it all. Clint’s a disaster. He drinks coffee in the shower and sometimes forgets to brush his teeth and almost all of his clothes have holes in them and he never makes his bed. And those aren’t even the _worst_ things about him.

Why would someone amazing like Steve want _him?_

“I can’t.”

Natasha doesn’t say anything to that. As always, she knows when to let the silence speak for her.

“You have to get me so drunk when he rejects me,” Clint says, with a huge sigh of resignation, after about ten minutes of silence. “Ugh. Feelings. This sucks.”

“That’s the spirit.” It would be encouraging from anyone else, but from Nat, it’s just vaguely threatening.

He loves her so much he could burst with it. So, he climbs to his feet and flips her off as soon as he’s standing. “You’re a jerk.”

She smiles, all daggers and bloody intent. “You’re stalling.”

He drags his feet on his way out of her apartment, but he goes. He doesn’t want to test her; he knows she’s got knives stashed strategically throughout her apartment, but he doesn’t know if any—or how many—are close to where she’s sitting. It’s probably best to talk to Steve when he’s not bleeding, because it would not be a mark in Clint’s favor to remind Steve how much of a disaster he is.

He goes to Steve’s quarters and knocks, bouncing on his heels as he waits. It doesn’t take too long for Steve to answer the door, but Clint feels like he could generate enough electricity to power Avengers Tower for weeks with just the anxious energy in his veins by the time the door swings open.

“Hi,” Steve says, sounding surprised. “What’s up?”

“Can we talk?” Clint blurts. He bites his lip.

“Sure,” Steve says slowly. “Come on in. Coffee?”

“Uh, no thanks.” Clint _desperately_ wants the comfort of coffee right now, but if he has a cup it might prevent him from making a timely escape when Steve inevitably rejects him. Also, his anxious body probably doesn’t need the caffeine.

Steve pauses in his steps, already moving toward the kitchen. “Oh,” he says after a moment. “Okay. Want to… sit down?”

Clint nods. He all but collapses into one of Steve’s chairs in the main room and has to physically restrain himself from bouncing his leg.

Steve sits down across from him and raises an eyebrow. “So,” he says slowly, “what’s up?”

“Natasha said you paid a lot of money to fake-date me because you wanted to real-date me,” Clint says. Those words do, in fact, emerge from his mouth.

He’s never really had a brain to mouth filter, but wow, this is a whole new low.

“Fuck, that’s not,” he says almost immediately, and then he pauses and takes a moment to actually think about the words he wants to say.

Steve, in the meanwhile, is bright red and looks like he wants to run away. He opens his mouth at the same time as Clint. Neither of them says anything, each waiting for the other to speak first.

Steve closes his mouth, so Clint says, “What I meant to say is, uh, that if you wanted our fake-date to be a real-date, that’d be okay with me.”

It’s… still not great. Fuck, why is his brain betraying him like this?

It must be better, though, because when Steve says, “What?” he doesn’t look like he’s about to flee the country.

Clint sighs. “I like you,” he says. “Kind of a lot? I don’t—” He stops, then starts again. “I’m not good at feelings. Or relationships. Or… anything? But I like you. And I’d like to date you for real, if you want.” He bites his lip to stop himself from saying anything else that’s horribly awkward and stilted.

He waits nervously for Steve to reply. Steve is just kind of… gaping at him?

Clint allows his leg to bounce. He needs the outlet.

Finally, Steve says, “I’ve wanted to go on a date with you for a long, long time.”

“Oh,” Clint says, because he… was not expecting that. “Good?” It comes out uncertain. “That’s… good.”

Steve smiles, soft and slow and brighter than sunshine. “Yeah,” he agrees. “It is.”

Their first date takes place two hours later.

They curl against each other on Steve’s oversized couch and eat pizza while watching Netflix. It’s almost the same as hanging out, except there’s infinitely more blushing, and when they’re done demolishing the pizzas, they sprawl out on the couch, Clint lying on top of Steve, their legs dangling over one of the couch’s arms.

“There’s something else I’ve wanted to do for a long time,” Steve says a while after they’ve given up on pretending to watch the screen and started watching each other and talking softly instead.

“What’s that?”

“To kiss you.”

It’s cheesy, and it’s stupid, and it’s also maybe the most romantic thing that’s ever happened to Clint. Not that that’s a high bar or anything, but _fuck,_ this moment feels special.

Clint doesn’t want to ruin it by opening his mouth and saying something stupid. So he doesn’t. Instead, he just leans up and kisses Steve, sighs and melts into the warmth of it.

When they break apart, Clint tucks his face into Steve’s neck and breathes him in the way he so desperately wanted to just a few days ago. “I’m glad you paid an obscene amount of money to go on a date with me,” Clint mumbles.

Steve laughs quietly. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Clint agrees. “Otherwise Nat wouldn’t have been able to bully me into telling you my feelings.”

Steve laughs again. It’s the best sound Clint’s ever heard. He wants to make it his ringtone so he can hear it every time someone texts him for the rest of his life… but that’s probably overkill, so he dials back on the impulse. “Then I’m glad too. Best money I ever spent.”

**Author's Note:**

> I removed the *** scene breaks because I've found out they mess with screen readers. If this format was also not good, though, I'm definitely open to suggestions.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] i grow fonder every day](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26697388) by [Flowerparrish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flowerparrish/pseuds/Flowerparrish)




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